5 Ways to Deal Effectively with a Micro-managing Mormon Bishop

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) functions primarily as a lay ministery. This means that members within the congregation are not paid, including the clergy.

Mormon congregations are divided geographically into “wards”. Every 5 years or so a new pastor (called a Bishop) is called from within the ward by the general authorities of the church.

In typical Christian denominations, I have seen that people tend to bounce around a lot until they find the “right” pastor for them. They search for a pastor with the right personality, charisma, preaching style, and leadership style that fits their needs and if the pastor isn’t working or them, as Donald Trump would say, he’s fired!

Although members of a ward ultimately can choose to attend a different ward outside of their boundaries, it is typically frowned upon to do that. Mormon leaders encourage members to stay in their assigned ward in order to help build it up, regardless of who is called to be their leader.

This can be great when a “good” bishop is called to lead the ward. However, if a bishop is called that clashes with members it can be a significant challenge.

I’ve seen people quit coming to church altogether based on a new Mormon Bishop that was called.

A Micr0manger as a Mormon Bishop

One of the greatest conflicts I’ve seen is having a Mormon Bishop who is a micro-manager. Since virtually all members of the ward are called to have a church job, this can lead to challenges for members if the bishop has a heavy hand in all the decisions.

For example, within a ward (usually consisting of 200-400 people) there are leaders called by revelation by the bishop to lead many areas such as Young Men, Young Women, Sunday School, Primary (children’s sunday school), Elder’s Quorum (Men’s Group), High Priests (Typically the older men), and Relief Society (Women’s group). Each of the leaders within each of those groups are in charge of selecting people from within the ward to help carry out tasks as well.

According to a recent regional conference in Asia led by Mormon Apostle, Dallin Oaks, members who are called are “entitled to receive inspiration and revelation for [their] respective stewardships”. This gives members of the ward flexibility to pray and select people to help run their group as they feel inspired to.

The conflict arises if a bishop (who ultimately makes the final decision) doesn’t accept the decisions made by leaders of the various groups. This can be very frustrating for the group leaders.

What is the best way to deal with a micro-managing Mormon Bishop?

I’m definitely not the expert on this and welcome any feedback, but I will give a few suggestions that have helped me along the way.

Dealing Effectively with a Micro-managing Mormon Bishop

1. Pray

When things happen that a leader does that I don’t like it is very easy in the heat of the moment to say or do something I will regret later. If I choose to pray for guidance the Lord usually calms me down and guides me.

2. Remove the beam from my own eye

It’s hard to do, but it is essential to look at myself and what things I’m doing wrong possibly first and not judge my leader. This is what Jesus taught and it’s easy to talk about, but not always easy to do. When I choose to do this things are a lot better and I have the Lord’s Spirit with me.

3. Try to see the Bishop’s perspective

The Bishop has a tremendous responsibility and is privy to many people’s challenges and needs. He also has ultimate stewardship for the ward. Since bishops are untrained and simply rely on their life experience and their faith in the Lord, it is crucial that members of the congregation rally around him and support him even if he’s not the most personable or a micro-manager.

4. Trust in the Lord

I’ve heard President Monson say on many occasions “Whom the Lord calls, the Lord Qualifies”. Try and remember that the Lord called the bishop and to pray to see things from His perspective as to why the bishop was called. Pray again to see what you can do to support the bishop and lighten the load. The church is the Lord’s church and He had faith in the bishop that was chosen, pray to see why.

5. Let Go

If I let go of my feelings and turn them over to the Lord, I feel much better. I share my desires and reasons for why I want to do something and my frustrations of being micro-managed, or having a personality conflict, or whatever it is, and the Lord takes the burden for me.

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8 comments

“Whom the Lord calls, the Lord Qualifies”. That surely is true of the bishop. But it is also true of the congregant with a calling.

Excessive micromanagement by a superior can be discouraging and deflating and lead to passive aggression on our part. Frankly, that leadership style does not help us, but because a hindrance.

I think a key to remaining sane, and to fulfilling our calling in a pleasing way to ourselves and to God, is to continue to exercise our judgment and seek inspiritation from God about fulfilling the calling. If the bishop shoots down one or several ideas, keep going back to God and exercise our judgment and make proposals (with a humble smile) until the bishop finally accepts one. Or, if the bishop insists on making decisions for us, implement those decisions in accordance with the inspiration God grants and our own judgment.

We can only do what we can do within our constraints. If the bishop insists on adding other limitations not in the manual by micromanaging, simply view that as an additional challenge or constraint in fulfilling the calling and we do the best we can.

Of course, micromanagers some times can “break the will” of people who are micromanaged. If we are reaching that point, it may be time to pray for a release or even to ask for one. Failing that, it may reach a point to surrender our decisions back to the bishop, and not do anything until he directs us how.

I don’t necessarily recommend the approach I used as a young Elders Quorum president, but I largely ignored the micromanaging bishop I had at the time. I simply did not keep him in the loop of what I was doing unless he asked me specifically. I shared my activities with my stake president, and reported only the minimum to my bishop. I was a bit of a know-it-all and certainly had a beam in my eye at the time. But at least I could function in my calling.

Excellent advice, GraceforGrace. I’ve tried seeing the other person’s perspective in various relationships and have found it a great help.

Relating to your #2, I can think of several times when I prayed about friction in a relationship and the Lord opened my eyes to see that the other person wasn’t the only one to blame. It was actually partially or totally my fault!
Sometimes it isn’t until years later that I realize the extent of my own faults in straining a relationship. Thanks for the covering blood of Jesus (Romans 4:7-8)!

Thanks for the insight…unfortunately it isn’t until years later that we’re ready to learn and open for the Lord to touch us.

All of us who haven’t been bishops before and criticize the bishop had better watch out, or the Lord will give us a good learning experience and call us to be bishops! There’s a few years of learning that I would prefer not to have to do!

Thanks for this post. I have had a micro-managing bishop before. And I agree with your tips. I found that remembering helps – remembering everything – that he is a man and that he is trying to the best he knows how to do helps.

I am the kind of woman who likes to please people. This isn’t always the best characteristic, and I’ve tried to change that over the years. One thing I noticed that was hard with me for the micro-managing bishop was that I would work my heart out, and then get strongly criticized. It was confusing to receive promptings from the Lord on what I ought to do, then be told what I did was not good enough.

I learned that I could support my bishop, and sustain him, and then ultimately remember that I wasn’t serving him, but I was serving the Lord.

Prayer helped me to learn everything that I did during that time. Of course, the difficulty is – in order to have a good, sincere prayer we tend to have to do steps 2-5. If we don’t let go, trust the Lord, have charity, and then be humble. Then, the Spirit can help to comfort us and teach us how to work together.